Two Years and Fifty-Seven Days
by RelationBoats
Summary: James Potter was a teenager. He could hardly be expected to control himself.
1. Chapter 1

This idea sprung into my head completely against my will and wouldn't leave until I wrote it down. I'll probably abandon this as soon as the concept leaves me alone, but for now I'm going to foist it upon the rest of you unlucky sods.  
This is AU, and I'm not, and will unfortunately never be J.K.  
Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

Chapter One.

Lily Evans, temporary teacher of Charms at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, flopped back over her chair, her neck bending backwards as she stared up at the hugely arched stone ceilings.

Flitwick had been out with a cold.

As this was the same cold that he'd been out with for the past six months, Lily was starting to get the nasty suspicion that he didn't have a cold at all.

She was sat at the desk of classroom 2E, and because the back of the chair was too tall to tolerate leaning back in, she'd positioned herself with her legs hanging over one arm-rest and her head hanging over the other.

Her robes draped open and down the sides of the chair.  
This was her special, self-pitying posture.

She wasn't a whole week into her Auror training, fresh out of Hogwarts before she'd been called back.

She loved Hogwarts, and if she'd been left a little longer outside of it, she'd probably start to miss it.  
But she had been dragged back with coercion, bribery and emotional manipulation, and now wished that she was quite literally anywhere else.

She was kept here, rotting in her old high school while everyone else that she knew was moving on and doing things.

It made her feel like a child.  
Granted, a child that was teaching her favourite class instead of sitting through it.

There was a knock against the wooden door, which had swung all the way open without her even noticing.

She had a class that started in fifteen minutes, sixth years, the year that she most dreaded.  
She dreaded it the most because it contained Remus Lupin, the one and only student left that she regarded as a friend.

She had acquaintances here still, yes, people that greeted her in the hallways and treated her with more friendliness than they extended their usual teacher, but Remus Lupin was her last equal.

This would not have bothered her in the slightest if it hadn't meant tolerating his friends as well.

They were a group of smarmy pricks, and if it weren't for Remus, they'd be in a perpetual detention, hung upside down by that new over-enthusiastic caretaker that they seemed to love tormenting.

Instead of turning to address whoever had knocked on the door at her, she tried to remember what the caretakers name was.  
Was it Milch? Mulch? _Filch_ , she decided was probably it.

Her head rolled to the side to look at the entrance to the classroom, it was too early for even the most enthusiastic of N.E.W.T.s students to show up, but there, leaning against the opened doorway as if he owned it, was James Potter.

She wouldn't lie to herself, he was good looking, and she was attracted to him. Or at least she decided that she would be when he was a few years older.

She didn't bother moving, she didn't care if James Potter saw her being unprofessional, staring at the ceiling and moping.

"What do you want?" She asked, no trace of leniency or kindness in her voice.

She wanted him to go away.  
She was meant to have ten more minutes of privacy.

His smile was cocky and wide, like he was pleased with himself for annoying her.

"Just thought I'd stop in and say hi." He said, hazel eyes glinting with amusement under his glasses.

"Hi."She said, turning back to look up at the ceiling. "Now fuck off."

Her neck was starting to ache, but the ache was better than having to look at a beautiful and obnoxious seventeen year old.

" _Language_ ," he warned, admonishing her as if he was having fun.

"What do you want, Potter?" She asked with a sigh, reaching up to rub her eyes.

James Potter walked toward her, close enough to perch himself up on her desk. He looked down at her in a fond sort of amused way that made her a little uncomfortable.

He was tall, she realised. Much too tall.

Quite a distance taller than she was.

Handsome, too, with a thick smattering of black stubble peeking through the skin over his jaw.

Seventeen year olds weren't meant to have real stubble, were they?

And his eyes were so incredibly pretty, molten gold, downcast liquid cinnamon, and he was so incredibly close, his breath coming out in short little puffs, one of his teeth peeking out to create a divot, a little dimple in his lower lip.

She tried not to let herself be distracted by him.  
But she was.

And when she looked up to see his eyes had drifted down the front of her shirt, she realised that he was a little distracted, too.

"Watch where you put your eyes, Potter."

His answering grin was huge and shameless.

"I'm here only for the pleasure of your company."

"Sure you are. What do you want."

"Would you believe me if I said that I wanted you?"

"Not even a little bit, kid." This was a lie.

She was still staring at the ceiling, so she didn't see the way he flinched when she called him 'kid.'

"Well then, I was wondering whether you'd help me with a charm."

"That's exactly what I'm here for." She said, slowly lifting her legs from the arm rest and straightening herself back up with a stretch and a low moan.

His hand gripped the edge of her desk.

"Well, this charm is a little extra-curricular," he said with a wicked grin.

She sighed heavily.

"Sirius hasn't tried to use an engorgio on a certain choice part of his body again, has he?"  
James laughed.

"If only. No I was thinking something more along the lines of what they've got up in the Great Halls ceiling. Smaller scale, of course, but same basic principle."

"If you already know what you want to do, why are you talking to me? You could be in the library telling absolutely no members of authority about what I'm sure is a very nasty plan."

He took a slow breath in through his nose, like he was smelling the air. His smile was lazy and just a little predatory.

"Ambiance. The charms classroom is prettier to look at. That and the library's dead boring. Now help me would you, Evans?"

"No." She said, opening her desk drawer and pulling out a single stick of muggle chewing gum, which she tossed in her mouth. "And call me Professor."

He was trying to be charming, she could tell.  
It wasn't going to work, or at least that was what she was trying to tell herself.

"If that's what gets you going."

He was interested in her.

She wasn't stupid and he wasn't subtle, he was interested in her in the same way most of the sixth years were.

She was young enough to look pretty, but old enough to have grown out of adolescent awkwardness, making her a great target for teenage fantasies.

It didn't mean she had to encourage or even acknowledge them.

Suddenly, a group of puffing teenage boys burst through the doorway and into the classroom.

"Prongs, shut up, she's a _Professor._ " said a voice that she recognised as belonging to Sirius Black. "No offence, Evans." He tacked on the end.

"None taken, Black. And look, all of you are here on time for once." She said as Peter rounded the doorway, face red and puffing harder than the other two. It looked as if they'd left him behind once again.

Remus gave her a tiny, sheepishly embarrassed look accompanied by a small shrug.

Next to him, Sirius grinned hugely. The effect was a bit blinding.

"We wanted to get here early. Showing off in front of our fittest teacher." Said Potter with a wink.

Sirius gasped melodramatically "What about McGonagall?"

People had started filing into the classroom, now, turning the 'Marauders' banter into a spectator sport as usual.

"Shut up and go sit at your desk, Potter."

"I will if you stop calling me Potter."

"No." she rejected, pulling her lesson plan from her desk drawer, the class was on its way to being full of sixth year Gryffindors.

She didn't need to make a spectacle of herself in front of an audience.

"Why?" He demanded, his eyes darkening.

"Maybe I like your last name." She said without thinking about it.

"You can have it if you want it."  
And the room went silent.

James Potter looked at Lily Evans, and Lily Evans looked at him right back.

Sirius cuffed his friend on the shoulder and forced a laugh. It did not make the situation any less awkward.

"Take your seat, Potter." She ordered.

He turned around and walked down the row to his seat at the back.  
He didn't laugh with Sirius. He didn't even smile.

The two of them bent their heads over their desks and started scribbling viciously at a piece of parchment, putting too much enthusiasm into the paper to be paying attention to what she was actually about to teach.

Lily Evans found this good. This way the two of them wouldn't be distracting everyone else the way that they usually did.

Remus, at least was paying apologetically strong attention, as if to tell her that he was sorry for his friends' actions and a little embarrassed on their behalf.  
She liked him for that, even if she did get more annoyed every time James and Sirius shoved the note between themselves.

Peter, who was sat on the other side of James, passed his own notes to his friend, trying to join in.  
Peter's notes lay ignored at the top of James' desk.

Class ended and Sirius scrunched the note up and threw it in the bin as he dragged James out of the room.  
Remus came up to hand in their homework for them.

"I'm going to start giving them detention." She warned him.

He gave her a little smile.  
"They deserve it." He told her conspiratorially.

"They're going to be N.E.W.T.s students, they don't need detentions."

"They already get plenty of them, never you mind."

And with that he turned and left.

Once the classroom was emptied, Lily walked over to the side of the room and retrieved the note Sirius and Potter had been passing during class.  
She flattened it out

 **Did you just propose? Creepy, mate. Around her for ten minutes and you turn into a sexual predator, every single time.**

She recognised Black's handwriting.

 ** _I can't help it._**

 **You've only got two more years to go, then you can be as creepy as your heart desires.**

 ** _I can't wait two years._**

 **Yes you can, you tactless turd. In fact it's probably for the best that you stay away from her for the rest of these next two years as it is, otherwise she'll never see you as anything other than that one idiot kid she had to teach.**

 ** _She won't see me that way. We both know I'm irresistible._**

 **You're quite resistible, friend. And Evans seems to be doing quite the job of resisting you. You should stay away from her before you slip the truth. We both know if she finds out what you did, she'll hate you for the rest of your miserable little life.**

 ** _She thinks I'm stunning, I can tell. She also likes my hair._**

Lily Evans laughed aloud at this; she rather thought his hair was stupid. She felt a little guilty about snooping, but was much too curious to stop at this point. That and she wanted to know what he'd done that was so bad she'd hate him for it.

 ** _And unless you tell her, she's never going to find out what I did, so shut up you mighty twat._**

 **Just get over her for the time being. Date that Maud bird. She just about drools every time you walk past, its right funny. I could do with seeing her arse more often too, I reckon she must do fifty squats a day.**

 ** _Her arse isn't that nice._**

 **Slander. Her arse is almost as nice as mine.**

 ** _It can't be that nice if I've never noticed it._**

 **Have you ever noticed my arse?**

 ** _No, Padfoot. I have not._**

 **Case and point, bud. You don't notice anyone's arse but hers.**

 ** _Do you think Evans charms her hair to sit that way? Look at it._**

 **Probably. I don't care, we were talking about arses, don't skip off into the land of Lily Evans and her hair and her 'Beautiful Green Eyes that may Hold a Screen of Lies'**

 ** _You shut up about my poetry._**

 **I will when you stop writing trash. Bad poetry hurts us all.**

 ** _You don't have to read it, you know._**

 **Oh, but I do. It's much too funny to ignore. Me and the lads give dramatic reading on Wednesdays when you're in Binns' 6:30 detention.**

 ** _Moony'd never stand for that._**

 **Oh he usually stands for readings. Sometimes even on a table for all of the common room to hear.**

 ** _You're lying._**

 **Sometimes I really wish I was.**

She scrunched the note back up and tossed it back in the trash, amused, but with her curiosity amplified and then left completely unfulfilled.

She gathered her things and made her way through the castle to her room.

It was much smaller than the Gryffindor girls dorm that she was used to, but she had this one to herself.

There was a bedroom (bedecked in familiar red and gold) a small lounging area with a comfortable couch and a fireplace (also bedecked in familiar red and gold) and a large bathroom (which wasn't at all bedecked in red and gold, but had a shower with fantastic water pressure instead to make up for it.) The room even had a large cabinet next to the fireplace where she could keep all of her miscellaneous potions and charmed objects.

It was standing in front of this cabinet that she found Benjy Fenwick, who was examining a tiny bottle of veritaserum that she was aging for use on any of the Marauders should they try to lie.

It wasn't technically allowed for use on students, but she remembered at one ball she and Marlene McKinnon had spiked the punchbowl with a rather large dose and it had made for a very fun evening.

She figured that it wouldn't be too difficult to convince another student to do the same.

Benjy, apparently hadn't heard her enter.  
He was meant to be back with Marlene- training to be an auror-

She saw him, and dropped her bag.

Benjy's face broke out into a huge, friendly grin.  
Benjy had always been good at huge friendly grins, he had an easy sort of nature that made him very easy to like.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, very pleased to see him.

"I came for a visit, now come over here and give me a hug you silly sod."

She did as he asked, and the hug made her feel quite a bit better about just about everything.  
"How are you enjoying teaching?" He asked the top of her head.

"It's rubbish. How are you enjoying training?"

He sighed a bit too dramatically.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be, Evans."

"You're lying to make me feel better, aren't you." She said.

"Just a bit, yeah."

With that, she sighed and let go of him.

"How did you get in here, anyway?"

"My special Auror training has given me the skills necessary to-"

"You guessed my password, didn't you?"

"It's your own fault, you always use the same one. Let's go down to the hall for lunch, I'm famished."

"Alright, tell me what you're doing here on the way down." She said, picking up her back to dump it on her already over-cluttered desk.

She made a mental note to change her password to something very long and difficult next time she had the chance.  
"So. Why is it that you're here?" She asked as they started down the staircases.

"I missed house elves cooking. I've no idea how they get the outside of the potatoes so crunchy, I've got to ask one of them."

"And why else are you here?" She said, running her hands along the cold railing.

"Alright, old mate McGonagall wrote Marly and me a letter telling us that you were, well, miserable. So we decided to pop down in our holiday to see you."

"Then where's Marlene?" Lily asked.

Seeing Benjy was all well and good, and she didn't mean to sound rude, but of the two of them, she missed Marlene more.  
Benjy laughed.

"Well, she was supposed to be here with me, but she got so excited about seeing you that she couldn't focus on training. Mad-Eye's keeping her back a few days to finish up, but she should be here after that."

"And how long are you staying for?" She asked as they crossed the threshold of the Great Hall. The two of them walked past the table that they'd sat at every day of their education, and continued up the plaitform to the table where the Professors sat.

"For as long as you'll have me, I guess." He said, pulling up a chair to the teachers table. "Now this is weird." He said under his breath, looking over at the students from an elevated position.

"I know. It takes a bit of getting used to." She said.

"James Potter is staring at me." Said Benjy as Lily loaded her plate.

"Flip him off then, see what happens." She said, more focused on a rather nice looking bit of roast chicken.

Instead, Benjy greeted the other teachers and tried not to make a fool of himself while eating at the teachers table.  
Lily looked over the students to see that Potter was still indeed glaring industriously at Benjy.

"He's still looking at you." She told her friend.

"I know," he smiled. "I think it's sweet. He's still got a crush on you." He cooed at her, taking a bite of sandwich.

"What do you mean 'still'?" She asked, nose scrunching.

"Oh don't be thick, Lily, that boy has worshipped the ground you walked on since he was a tiny little first year."

"No he hasn't," she denied.

"Oh he has. Why do you think he was always such a right little twat whenever you were around?"

"Because he's a shithead?"

"No. because he was an idiot little boy. And that's what idiot little boys do when they're in love with someone who's older than them. He was acting out because he was too short to pull your pigtails."

"You're an idiot, Fenwick."

"I know. But I'm only telling the truth as I see it."

She grinned at him.

"You think it's funny, don't you."

"Yes. But to be fair, that's only because it is. Now what do you think of the Prewetts, because they wanted to come down for a visit as well but no one would give them permission to come back on school grounds."

"Well after the stunt they pulled with the staircases, I'm not surprised. It took the teachers an age to get the antlers off."

"And even longer to get the purple out. Anyway, they're going to be down in Hogsmeade for a week and a bit if you want to go down there and get a drink with them later."

"Sounds good. I've got some detentions and papers to grade first though," Lily said around some bacon that her teeth had pulled all the way out of her sandwich.

"We'll go on Friday, that way we can get properly sloshed and you won't have to wake up to teach the next morning."

"There's a plan. Do you think Marlene will be here by then?"

"You can't just be bloody happy to see me, can you. It's just like seventh year all over again," he mocked kindly with a good natured smile.

"Oh hush. You like Marlene better than you like me as well."

"That's true." He conceded with a bit of a blush.

"Aw, you're blushing. Cute. You made a move yet?"

"No."

"You're training to be an auror, a hunter of dark wizards, but you're not brave enough to ask out a girl you fancy?"

"I'm pathetic, I already know. No need to rub it in my face." He said with an eye roll.

"Look, it's easy. Just walk up to her and say 'Hey McKinnon. We're doing dinner on Thursday.'"

"That sounds a bit rude."

"She likes forceful men, you know the sort. Beaters that've had all their brain cells killed."  
He looked down at his narrow chest and made a face.

"Look, just shove her up against a wall and snog her. She'll like that."

"Lily, I can't shove her up against anything, do you know how much stronger than me she is?"

"You're making excuses, Fenwick. Do you want to shag her or not?"

"Of course I do."

"Then stop thinking about it and do it. Now I'll see you in a bit, I've got to go teach a group of Slytherins who refuse to listen to me because I'm muggle-born."  
Her old friend looked at her for a long moment.

"You've gotten a bit tougher since the last time I've seen you, haven't you?" He said, a small furrow between his eyebrows.

"Nah. I've just got much less patience. It comes with having to deal with James Potter and his shit little gang."


	2. Chapter 2

A brief warning for those with innocent or delicate sensibilities: This Chapter Will Contain Smut.  
Well, sort of. It's nothing too terrifying.  
You've been warned, friends.

Chapter Two.

James was sat in her office, looking up at her lazily.

Amusement had lifted half of his mouth into an arrogant sort of half smile.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he would have her if it killed him.

"Sometimes it rains, see. I don't know why I should be held responsible." He told her.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

James Potter could bring out a homicidal streak in a saint. And Lily Evans was most definitely not a saint.

"It was raining in Filch's office, Potter. And Filch's office only."

"Well, it's more of a cupboard, really. An old storage spot with a bed pushed into the back."

She looked at him without expression.

"I'm going to have to give you a detention," his grin only grew.

"But how do you know it was me that did it?"

He was leaning forward now, getting too close. She found his physical presence choking. He made it hard to breathe- and now her head was light.

"The same way I know it was you who carpeted the Slytherin bathrooms." She'd been in seventh year when that had happened. Even the ceiling had been covered with dark  
red shagpile. It was nasty.  
It had taken a group of professors six whole days to get it off, by which point the entire place was growing quite a heinous breed of mould.

"And how did you know I did that?" He asked, his smile growing wider, once again, at the memory.

"Because no one else would. You'll meet me here at five o'clock sharp, and bring a quill because you'll be grading my first years."

He leaned back in his chair.

"Do you think that's really wise, Evans? We both know I'm shite at charms." He said it as if it were something to be proud of.

Lily wondered if he had ever managed a modicum of shame in his life.

She frowned when she realised that he probably hadn't.

"You're not so bad that you can't grade essays written by eleven year olds." She said, rubbing at a spot above her eyebrow where a headache was starting up.  
She didn't want to have to deal with this tiresome bullshit, she was exhausted.

It was why she didn't bother trying to give detentions to the other three of his little group, in fact, if Potter hadn't talked to her about the charm on the Great Halls' ceiling the other day, she wouldn't have bothered with him, either.

"I beg to differ," He said, his smile falling off of his face, he was looking at her with something like concern, and it unsettled her deeply.

"You can leave now," she said. It was a very thinly concealed order.  
For once, he didn't argue, and just did as she said.

She tried to grade seventh year homework, but became too exhausted to bother.

She trudged back up to her room, walking past the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. She could faintly hear the voice of Sirius Black coming through the fat lady's  
portrait.

" _You're a liar,"_ She could hear him yell over a wordless female shrieking. " _I'm the most fabulous fornicator of all time,"_  
Lily Evans decided that she had heard enough, and walked away before she could hear any more.

When she finally opened her own portrait hole, Benjy was waiting for her.  
He appeared to have pilfered a large number of muffins from the kitchens.

"You look dreadful." He said with a grin.

"Thanks, mate." She tried to say over a yawn.

She could use a shower and a nice long nap.  
In fact, that, was exactly what she intended to do.

She had a long shower, got changed into muggle clothes and when she re-emerged, Benjy was holding a nice hot cup of tea for her.

She considered giving him a heartfelt declaration of love, but fell asleep instead.

She woke badly.

She felt groggy and terrible, the way one always does after a nap.

She lifted her wrist to check her watch, and saw that it was ten past five.

"Fuck." She told her pillow.

She tried to lever herself up, but was unsuccessful.

"Benjy, help me up." She yelled.  
He came into the room.

"You're a mess, ginge."

"Sure am, now help me up, I've got a detention with Potter."

"Well shit, Lily, why didn't you tell me you had a hot date," he snorted, hoisting her up, covering her with a robe, and leading her out of the room.  
She tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes as Fenwick dropped her arm.

She almost tripped over three times, and when the fourth came, although she was now fully awake, he sighed and wound his arm under hers to hold her up.

It took them a few minutes to get back to her office, where James Potter was waiting, leaning against the wall outside the door waiting for her.

There was a long moment before he'd noticed her and Fenwick that she got to watch him.

He was hunched at the shoulders, his cocky arrogance gone entirely.  
He looked worried.

Then he looked up, and the worry dissipated.

James Potter assessed the two of them standing together, her arm over his.

He looked at her rumpled clothes and her tangled mass of red hair.

His jaw clenched, she could see the muscle in his cheek harden and dent.

She cleared her throat and then stepped forward to unlock her office door.

"Sorry I was late," she murmured, completely embarrassed.

He didn't answer her, just walked past her and into her office.

Benjy snorted and shot her a mock salute before turning to walk away.

Taking what was meant to be a deep, fortifying breath, she followed Potter into the room.

She closed the door behind him and saw that he hadn't sat yet.  
Instead, he was standing tall, his ribcage heaving and his hands in shaking fists by his sides.

"Fenwick?" He asked.

Her brow furrowed.  
"What about him?"

James Potter turned around to face her, and he looked angry.

Not annoyed, or sort of angry, he looked livid.

"Benjy _fucking_ _Fenwick_?" He said, stalking toward her until he was standing too close.  
She thought for a moment that he might hit her.

Instead he just stood and breathed heavily at her.

"What about him?" She repeated, standing her ground and staring up at him.

He was tall, her eyes only came as high as the middle of his chest, and she could see it expanding and contracting rapidly with some sort of frustration.

"What were you doing with him?" Potter demanded, jaw hard and gaze level.

She took a half a step back, starting to feel a little panicked, her own breathing was speeding up now, her heartbeat thrumming along as if there was carbonation in her veins.

He took a whole step forward, pushing her back until her shoulder blades hit the wall behind.

Her breath snagged in her throat as he boxed her in.

She patted her pockets a little frantically, but found that she'd left her wand back on the table next to the muffins.

He leaned over her, casting her in shadow.  
He was tall, much too tall.  
And incredibly broad.

The muscles in his forearms flexed, thick and strong, and he was a man.

She realised it for the first time, he wasn't a first year anymore, he was a man.  
And he was close. Much too close.

Her blood started to heat up even further in her veins, fizzing, bubbling, boiling.

A delicate line of electricity danced over the skin of her neck.

She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him back, but he didn't shift.

This was when she realised that she was in trouble.

She tried pushing harder, but he ignored the pressure as if he hadn't at all noticed.

Instead, he reached down with one hand and opened her robes, pulling them down her shoulders.  
They dropped to the floor.

"Potter, what are you doing?" she asked, her voice started shaking.

She'd always been somehow above him, always older. She'd always been a prefect or Head Girl, a teacher while he was a student.

She'd never considered that when they had both been stripped of title, boiled down to their basest selves, he was strong.  
And she was not.

And now they were alone in a locked office, and she didn't have her wand.

His breath was hot on her skin, and his pupils had expanded to almost fully eclipse his irises.

He hadn't seemed to have heard her.

He reached up to trace a light hand down the side of her neck.

A tiny breathless whimper came out of her throat and her skin raised a million tiny goosebumps.

His touch burned.

He liked the noise she'd made, by the sound of his low grumble of approval.

His huge hand dropped from her neck to her collarbone, where his deft fingers undid the top button of her shirt.

And then made very quick work of the next two.

Half of her shirt was now open, and her limbs felt useless, as if they'd been jellied, removed of bones altogether.  
She tried to reach up to stop him, to stop what he was doing, but they didn't want to.

She didn't want to.  
He lowered his head and she let him.

He brought his tongue down to trace over the lazy border of her bra.

He groaned, and the vibration of it made her bite her lip to keep from crying out.

Her heart had gone mad inside of her chest, and she felt as if she'd been drugged.

Lily wasn't completely inexperienced, it wasn't as if she'd never been touched by anyone before- but this was different. That had just been skin against skin, in hindsight, they might as well have been inanimate objects for all of the reaction they'd drawn from her.

This was electricity tracing through her skin and fire running through her veins. This was terrifying.

Her shirt wasn't even all the way off and she could feel a pit of roiling heat low in her abdomen.

Her knees were going to give out, and she had no idea any longer why she'd been trying to push him away.  
The idea that he might stop touching her, that he might move away, had become entirely repellent.  
He pulled one cup of her bra down, and the cold classroom air chilled her for a moment before his hot, soft mouth closed gently over a nipple.

He swiped it with his tongue, and this time her knees did give out.

He held her up, and she wound her fingers into his messy, jet black hair.

He reached down and ran a gentle finger over her slit. And she made a sound that had him trembling against her.

And then she looked down to see her own pale fingers threaded through his trademark rumpled hair. She realised what was happening.  
Or more accurately, who it was happening with.

Who was making her feel this way.

She remembered that he was seventeen and her student.

He kissed, bit, and sucked a line up to her neck.  
His hands smoothed down over her back and then down to cup her buttocks.

He squeezed and rubbed and then without any warning he pushed her forward to grind her hot, wet core against his throbbing, hard crotch.

It felt so good that she couldn't help but roll her hips against him.

She wanted him closer.

She wanted his clothes gone, just rubbing against him with something in between them felt intrinsically wrong, she wanted him inside of her.

She needed him inside of her now, her insides were aching for it, clenching around nothing.

He was doing horrible, torturous things to her neck, and her eyes were fluttering.

She couldn't keep them open.

He was making rough, animal sounds in the back of his throat.

"You're mine." He told her.

And then he sucked too hard, and bit.

He bit hard enough to leave a mark.

This, as it turned out, was exactly what she needed to clear her head.

She shoved him hard enough that he fell to the ground.

He looked up at her, his glasses fogged and his eyes unclear.  
His mouth was swollen.

The fact that his glasses were still perched on his face was ridiculous.

She pulled up her bra and tried to hastily re-button her shirt.

James Potter flopped back against the floor.

" _What the hell was that?"_ She hissed at him.

"That was me giving in." He told her, perfectly calm as if they were talking about nothing more important than the detention he was meant to be in.

" _Giving in?"_ She demanded, yanking her robe back in place.

"Yeah, Evans. Giving in."

" _To what?_ "

He looked at her lazily.

Every night since first year, he had stared up at the canopy of his four-poster and thought of her. Of course, he was no longer eleven, and his night-time thoughts of her were no  
longer innocent.

No, now they were imaginative.

And explicit.

But he couldn't say that, he'd sound insane and she'd get a restraining order.

Instead of waiting for him to come up with something, she pulled herself to her feet and stared down at him.  
He didn't even bother trying to sit up, he knew he wouldn't be able to.

Not after that.

"You're seventeen," she said in a harsh whisper. "And you're my student."

And he thought she was lovely, but that didn't stop him from getting instantly annoyed at her words.

"And you're nineteen, I don't see a very big age gap, Evans."  
"I-"

"It's only two years and fifty-seven days." He said darkly.

This seemed to stun her for a moment.

He took this opportunity to look at the bruise he'd made on her neck, it was already blossoming, pink and lovely.

He felt heat and satisfaction. She was his, and everyone would know it. Especially Fenwick.

"You're still my student."

"But I won't be in another two years."

"That isn't the point, Potter."

"You'll be mine, Evans. It might take me a month or a year, or maybe even ten, but I'll get you."

" _Mary mother of fuck_ , get over yourself. Find a girl your own age. Find one whose life wouldn't be ruined by an affair with a _child._ " she yelled, completely unhappy that her heart was still beating so quickly.

"No." He told her through gritted teeth.

Then he stood, and he left, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to stay in the room alone with her without doing something.  
Or someone.

The fire was roaring in the Gryffindor common room, and the other Marauders were sat around it. Clareece Connelly was sitting nearby trying to catch Sirius' attention.

He, however, was far too caught up in telling Remus some sort of dramatic story to notice.

Remus Lupin, however was barely paying attention for doing his homework.

"Remus, are you listening? We turned him into a goat, Remus, Remus a goat, Remus."

"James?" Remus asked, looking up to see his friend coming through the portrait hole.

Sirius' turned so quickly that James was surprised his neck didn't snap.

"Don't you still have an hour left of detention?" He asked, looking concerned, probably more for Lily than him.

The two had always been dreadfully fond of one another, which was something, to James' annoyance, he hadn't been allowed to capitalize on.

"No. Got let out early for bad behaviour." He said.

Remus didn't like the sound of that.

"Wasn't it a detention with Lily?" He asked cautiously. He always brought up Lily cautiously, but that was mainly because James had a habit of going on about her for hours after she'd come up in conversation. That or sighing a lot.

James Potter had become rather good at sighing.

He did it with the drama and flair usually reserved for pre-pubescent girls and annoyed dogs.  
He did not sigh now.

"Yeah, it was."

And with that pathetic non-excuse out of the way, James Potter made his way up to their dorm room.

He got into his bed and closed the curtains.

He stared up at the canopy for a long moment, before reaching out to his bedside table for the book he'd been half way through for the past two years.

Out of this book, he pulled a bit of paper that he'd been using as a bookmark, sitting the book itself back down, his page lost and forgotten.  
The bookmark was a photo.

It was a photo of the stretching sandstone walls outside of the Great Hall.  
There was a line of white through one of the corners, where it had been accidentally folded over.

It was a picture of Lily back when she was a student.

Back when he'd thought she'd be leaving Hogwarts and he wouldn't be seeing her again for at least another two years.

She was leaning against the castle wall and sighing in relief, having just come out from finishing her N.E.W.T.s  
He'd paid fifteen galleons for the photo.

The boy who'd taken the photograph had done so especially for him.

Everyone knew he loved Lily Evans.

And now she did too.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three.

Lily wanted a hug.

Not an awkward, hard hug that someone as skinny as Benjy would give, but a real one.

She wanted the sort that Marlene gave, which were always a little too tight.

She was sat at a table at the Three Broomsticks with a huge tankard of mulled mead.

Benjy was off collecting shots of Firewhiskey at the bar, and Gideon and Fabian were looking at her over the table.

"You look right miserable." Said Fabian.

"Is that a hickey?" Said Gideon.

"You look like you could do with getting properly toasted." Said Fabian, not waiting for her to answer his brother.

"Actually, that'd be brilliant." She said, lifting up her tankard to drink it just a little too quickly.

She briefly fought a gag as she finished the thing.  
The twins looked at her.

"That bad?" One of them asked, she wasn't looking, so she couldn't tell which.

She sat the tankard down with a loud thump.

"Just about." She admitted as Benjy arrived with a tray of amber coloured shots.

She took two and downed them with impressive speed.  
Benjy grimaced.

"You ready to talk about it now?" He asked.

"Talk about what? What happened?" Asked Fabian, seemingly more out of curiosity than concern.

She fell back into her seat and looked at the three of them.

"James Potter happened." She said.

Fabian and Gideon, who had both lifted their first shots half toward their faces, stopped.

"James Potter?" Gideon asked.

"No way,"

"We love that kid."

"He turned Clancy Schumacher's head into a potato when he was in fourth year."

"For absolutely no reason at all."

"It was excellent."

"Flawless merriment."

"He pulled my shirt down and sucked on my tit." She said, interrupting them, more than a little inebriated.

The three of them were suddenly in a small, silent bubble while the pub roiled around them.

Gideon gave a long, low whistle.

"Well, Evans, I'm not gonna lie. If my Charms teacher had looked like you, I probably would've given it a go as well."

"I'm a bit surprised you let him, though," said Fabian.

"I didn't." She said as a low snarl. "He was too strong to shove away and I'd left my wand up in my room."

"Well what did you do that for?"

"I didn't do it on purpose, Gideon." She said, drunk enough to forget to be outraged that he was blaming for not being able to defend herself instead of blaming Potter for his molestation.

Fabian took a shot, and then appeared to think for a second.

"Wait, wasn't it him who bought her knickers?"

Benjy snorted.

"It was!" Yelled Gideon, smiling at the apparently fond memory.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Lily asked. She wasn't quite happy, but she was drunk, which was miles better than what she'd been ten minutes ago.

"We used to nick knickers."

"We were running a nicked knicker ring when we were in seventh year."

"We're born entrepreneurs."

"Hold on," Benjy interrupted. "You stole girls knickers? And then sold them?"

Benjy sounded disgusted. Lily loved him for that.

"Yeah, well we weren't selling them to blokes like you." Fabian said as if it were a defence.

"We were selling them to nasty idiots."

"The bottom of the proverbial barrel,"

"The real scum of the earth."

"Blokes like us."

"And Slytherins."  
Fabian hummed in approval.

"They paid a lot, too."

"And there were quite a few requests for your undergarments, dear Lily."

She stared at them, her drunken mind not knowing whether she should yell or laugh.

"We only ended up taking one pair, navy blue lace, very nice."

"We figured we'd tell everyone it was an exclusive and have a bidding war."

"The price got way up there, too."

"James Potter ended up buying them."

"Although we always thought that he'd bought them to keep them out of circulation."

"I don't think he liked the idea of someone else sniffing the thong of his dearest Lilikins."  
She stared at them for a long moment.

"I'm probably going to slap the two of you, tomorrow." She told them mildly.

"What, not now?" Asked Benjy, looking a bit bemused.

"Honestly, I'm a bit too sloshed to care."

The twins cheered, and then they all drank some more.

* * *

They drank and they drank, and the three boys who all had lodging in Hogsmeade, decided to walk Lily back up to the castle. They sang Maggie May and Moonlight Bay all the way.

(The version of Moonlight Bay was a little augmented from the original and went something like this:

We were strolling along/ Moonlight Bay  
We could hear the voices singing/ and they seemed to say  
You have broken my heart/ So go away  
With your big fat hairy legs/ on Moonlight Bay)

* * *

Lily found herself alone in the entrance hall, stumbling drunk on her way to the staircases.

She hoped that the stairs themselves wouldn't shift too much, because she wasn't sure that her brain, which felt like it was floating unbalanced in a puddle of liquor, could cope.

She managed to get half the way up to her room before she realised that habit had taken her in the direction of the Gryffindor dorms.

"Shit," she said under her breath.

"Evans?" An incredulous voice called out.

She fought the urge to hide when she thought she was going to get in trouble.  
Then she remembered that she was no longer head girl- in fact, she was no longer a student at all, and so had licence to be as drunk as she liked.

So she walked away.

She heard rapid footsteps that quickly caught up to her staggering form, steadying her before she toppled over the hand-rail to her death.

The stairs shifted, with both her and her new friend on them.

"Great." He muttered.

She looked over to indentify the speaker, and found it was no other than Sirius Black.

"Hallo, Black." She said.

"You sound too pleased to see me by half. How much have you had to drink?" He asked, actually sounding a bit worried.

"Nothing." She told him.  
It was not very convincing.

"How much have you had to drink, Evans."

"Nothing at all." She was adamant.

"Do you want me to go and get James? Because I could call him up in a trice. I'm sure he'd just _love_ to deal with drunk Lily."

She physically recoiled, which was not the reaction he had been expecting.

"Don't you dare, Black." She whispered.

She had meant for the words to come out vicious, but they'd come out as pathetic instead.

"Then tell me how much you've had to drink." He said, trying to stare levelly into her eyes.

Her vision was unfocused, all she could see was a whole lot of smeared grey iris and some black where his hair might've been.

"'Bout half a bottle of Firewhisky. And some mead."

He stared at her for a long moment, assessing how tiny she was, how frail her limbs looked. How little body fat she had to absorb alcohol.

"You really don't do things by half, do you. C'mere, I'll help you back to your room."

Sirius wedged himself under her arm and turned them back in the direction she was meant to be heading in.

"You shouldn't know where my room is." She told him.

"Ah, you forget. I share a room with your dedicated stalker."

"Yesterday," she informed him. "I would've thought you were joking about that. But today I'm not so sure. Is it true that he paid fifty galleons for a pair of my knickers?" She asked, shamelessly curious.

This was when Sirius Black realised how drunk his Charms Professor really was.

"Who told you that?" He asked. He was James Potter's best friend, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't believe it.

"Fabian and Gideon."

"What, the Prewett's? How would they know?"

"They said they were the ones who sold it to him."

Sirius looked up to the ceiling and prayed for patience.

"Well, I think they're having you on." He took a deep breath. "James was acting right weird when he got back from your detention. Did something happen?" He asked, hoping he sounded innocent.

She looked at him, his face a little too close.  
They stopped walking.

"Yes, something happened." She said, sounding serious enough that for half a second he thought that she was perfectly sober.

Then whilst perfectly stationary she tripped over his foot and he remembered perfectly.

"And what exactly was it that happened?" He asked.  
She squinted at him for a moment.

"How did he say it? What did he say he did? He was ' _giving in'_." She repeated as if it were poison on her tongue.

"He what?"

"He gave in."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're not the best communicator when you're drunk?"

"Loads. Almost everyone I've ever drunk with. I've come to a conclusion, Black. Several, in fact. Would you like to hear them?"

"I'd absolutely love to."

He was starting to have a bit of fun here.

"I need to get laid."

Sirius Black choked.

"Well, I can certainly think of a willing party,"

"I don't think it would've felt so darn _good_ if I wasn't sexually frustrated."

"I'm sorry, what felt good?"

"And you, Black. You're incredibly clever, you know that already, but when it comes to what's socially appropriate, you're really not so bright."

"You really know how to cut a man down, Evans."

"Mmm. I practice."

He hadn't seemed really hurt by the remark. In fact, Lily had never seen the boy hurt by anything. He was always so cool.  
She thought he was dreadfully young to be so hard.

"Have you come to any other conclusions?" He asked. They were at her portrait now.

He'd follow her in to feed her a glass of water and make sure she got into bed, but he was sure that James would hex him half to death if he tried.

"Yes."

"Care to share?"

"Now. I've seen both of your arses, and I'm just going to say, in my humble opinion, that while they're both exceptionally nice-"  
She took a deep dramatic breath here.

"Maud's is better than yours."

Then she whispered her password and the portrait swung open.

Sirius stared at her.

She giggled.

"Night Sirius." She cooed, shutting the painting behind her.

"Goodnight, Lily." He said quietly to the closed door.

* * *

She was hungover for the entire weekend.

She'd thought that hangovers weren't meant to apply to you until you were at least thirty, but her body, apparently, had other ideas.  
She had the sixth year Gryffindors again today, and she wasn't happy about it.

She'd had spent her weekend feeling like trash, and now she was going to spend her Monday feeling ashamed of herself because she couldn't handle her teenage students properly.

So she sat behind the desk in her absurdly tall chair, and waited.

She'd realised that morning that her robes and hair would cover the bruise on her neck well enough that there was no need for a concealment charm, so she hadn't bothered.

Remus was first into her classroom, as per usual.

He came up to her desk with a friendly comforting smile and asked how her weekend had been.

She smiled and lied and asked him how his own weekend had gone.

After a long moment of polite conversation, he returned to his seat. He had wanted to ask her a question, she could tell that much, but apparently he hadn't been able.

He moved to sit by Sirius and James, who had filed in and sat down while she wasn't watching.

She squared her jaw and stared at them both, daring them to say something.  
She was determined not to feel ashamed, not to falter or crack in any way.  
She most certainly wasn't going to let James Potter think he'd got to her.

She could see Potter pointing his wand at her under the table, no doubt trying to remove the concealment charm he thought she must've placed on her neck.  
This put her in an even worse mood.

So instead of teaching something fun, which was what she'd planned on doing when she'd written out the lesson plans last week, (she'd been in a much better mood back then,) she prescribed class reading.

She started to mark the homework that had been given to her last week when she felt a hot shiver wash its way over her skin and an odd tingle of awareness at the back of her neck, in her fingertips, and in her belly.

A moment later she felt the same thing rush and pool in her breasts, weighting them down and making them overly sensitive.  
It was like every nerve in her body was calling out to be touched.

The spot between her legs started to throb, and she pushed her thighs together as if to make it stop.  
It didn't work.

She looked up to see the hazel eyes of James Potter, shining behind his glasses.

He didn't seem to have shaved over the past few days.

She wondered what his stubble would feel like between her thighs.

And then she wondered if he'd slipped an aphrodisiac into her pumpkin juice.

He licked his lips, just a quick swipe of his tongue to draw her attention.

And draw her attention it did.

He raised his hand.

"Yes, Potter?"

"I need to borrow a text book."

"Share with Sirius."

"He's a notorious book hog."

"Share with Peter."

"He's scribbled in his so much I can't tell what it says."

She sighed and tried to pretend she wasn't affected by how goddamned _deep_ his voice was.

It was too smooth to belong to a seventeen year old. It reached down and scraped at something primal in her.

"You can use mine." She said, pushing it forward on her desk and then looking back to her marking.

She was aware of him standing, and she could feel every step that he made toward her.

When he made it to her desk, he leaned forward until his lips pressed ever so lightly on the outside shell of her ear.

He enunciated every word carefully, making sure his mouth dragged, warm and soft over her skin with each syllable.

"I want to strip you, lick you, and fuck you numb. Right here, on this desk." He whispered.

Her insides heated, clenched, and then melted.

She may have whimpered a little, but her brain had suddenly become too fogged for her to be certain.

"I have my wand on me this time, Potter. I suggest you get back to your seat."

He cracked a half a smile, like he knew exactly what he'd done to her poor, abused heart.

He went back to his seat all the same, but it did nothing to calm her nerves.

Then, much to her relief, the back door of the room slammed open, breaking the intensity and his stare altogether.

In the open doorway stood the tiny, blonde figure of Marlene McKinnon, her wide blue eyes focused on Lily.

Lily stood with such speed that the tall chair behind her nearly toppled over.

Marlene ran forward, launched herself over the desk and into Lily, whom she clung to with both her arms and legs.

Lily clung back, supporting both of their weight and smiling into her friends' hair, stumbling forwards.

"I missed you I missed you I missed you I missed you!" Marlene crooned, shifting her arms around Lily's neck.

"I missed you too." She admitted.

The two of them stood like that for an indefinite period of time.

"My god, Lily Evans! Is this a hickey?" Marlene squealed after finally shifting back.

At this, all of the class but one sat to attention.  
The three spare Marauders looked to James Potter.

And then they saw that he didn't look upset, but rather pleased with himself instead.

"You _fiend_." Remus accused.

Lily cleared her throat, her best and closest friend still wrapped around her like a pretzel.

Marlene was almost strangling the life out of her, but it was in a nice sort of way. At any rate, she was blocking the hickey from class view.

"Last weeks homework on my desk, and you can have the rest of the lesson off." She said through a screen of blonde hair after a very long moment.

The class was only too eager to comply.

Once the room was empty, Marlene lowered herself down and looked Lily straight in the eye.

"Did sixth years always look like that? That Black boy is a goddamned dish- and what on earth happened to James Potter? He used to be so scrawny, but now, my god I could spread him on a cracker. Does he still follow you around like a little lost puppy?"

Lily sighed.  
"No, he's graduated to assaulting me in empty classrooms."

It was later that night when Marlene had passed out on her couch, that Lily pulled out the homework she was meant to be grading; that she found a crumpled piece of parchment that had been torn in half.

It had fallen from inside of Sirius Black's scroll of Charms revision.

 **Look at how happy she is to see her friend, Prongs.**

 ** _Shut up. I feel guilty enough._**

 **What are you going to do if she starts crying?**

 ** _Take a running jump off the astronomy tower._**

 **You should've just waited two years like any regular sane person would.**

 ** _Regular, sane people don't have access to my fathers money._**

 **Look at how miserable staying here is making her.**

 ** _When did you start caring so much about Evans?_**

Then, suddenly, Sirius' handwriting became heavy, agitated and splotched through with messy ink.

 **DID YOU ACTUALLY SPEND YOUR LAST DETENTION SUCKING YOUR CHARMS PROFESSORS NECK? ARE YOU SERIOUS, MATE. THIS IS GOING TO END SO TERRIBLY. THERE'LL BE HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE RAINING FROM THE MOTHERFUCKING SKY, I HONESTLY CANNOT BELIEVE HOW BADLY YOU MANAGED TO FUCK UP HAVING A CRUSH.  
SHE GRADUATED, YOU FOOL.  
YOU WERE JUST MEANT TO LET HER GO.  
YOU WERE MEANT TO BE SAD, AND THEN YOU WERE MEANT TO MOVE ON.  
YOU WERENT MEANT TO BRIBE THE GODDAMNED AUROR ACCEPTANCE BOARD.  
YOU WERENT MEANT TO BRIBE ****_FLITWICK_** **FOR FUCKS SAKE.  
AND YOU SURE AS GODS GREEN DICK WERENT MEANT TO ASSAULT HER IN AN EMPTY CLASSROOM YOU INSANE LITTLE ****_SHIT_** **.**

Lily Evan's hand was shaking.  
Apparently, so had Sirius'. There was a lot of uneven lettering, and even more angry splotches.

 ** _What on earth is wrong with you? You thought it was funny last week_**

 **THAT'S BECAUSE IT WAS FUNNY LAST WEEK.**

 ** _And it's not now?_**

 **NO. NOW IT'S RAPEY.**

 ** _I'm not rapey. I didn't do anything she didn't enjoy._**

 **YOU'RE DELUSIONAL.**

Lily put the parchment down.  
She felt hot, angry tears in the back of her eyes.

Flitwick had asked her to do this as his best student.  
The auror acceptance board had sent her the forms for re-application, telling her that the next entry date available to her was in two years.

She was going to kill him.


	4. Chapter 4

She was going to kill him.

She was going to leave her room, right now, march over to the Gryffindor dorms, she was going to knock until someone let her in, and then she was going to strangle the life out of him as he slept.

But first she was going to use every single unpleasant hex she could think of on his idiotic fucking body. She was going to make him bald for the rest of his life.

She was going to make him sob and beg for mercy.  
"You're shaking, Lily." Said Marlene, snapping her out of her trance, bringing her out of her fantasies of turning James Potter into a giant root vegetable and back into reality.

She picked the parchment back up and thrust it at her friend, the paper trembling in her fingers.

Marlene held it close to her eyes as she read it.

Her face creased in deeper outrage the further she got through it.  
She looked ridiculous, tiny, blonde, wearing pyjamas twice her size and filled with personal outrage.  
"Are you going to take this to McGonagall?" She asked.  
"I'm going to take this to _motherfucking_ _Dumbledore_." Lily spat. "And Mad-Eye. And Potter's dickwit of a father."

She started pacing around the room, planning the twelve-dozen angry letters she was going to write, and every individual she was going to write them to.  
And then there was the one, singular thank-you note that she was going to send to Sirius Black, and she was going to send it with a basket of muffins.

He had left her that note on purpose, so as far as she was concerned, Sirius Black was now her favourite student.  
Before she departed she was going to go through his old results and ace him in every single test he'd ever taken.

Marlene stopped in front of her and rested a hand on her arm.  
"Don't." She said.

Lily almost spat fire.  
"What do you mean, _don't_?"

"I mean, you're not going to get much of a chance for personal revenge if you alert the higher authorities."

"I also won't be able to leave this shit-hole and get started on my auror training if I don't alert the higher authorities."

Lily knew that the term shit-hole was completely incorrect, but she was angry and wanted to yell a bit.

"You won't be able to start your auror training until the beginning of next year as it is. So consider this; instead of telling everyone what a boysenberry flavoured fucknut James Potter is- you stay quiet, submit an early application to the Auror acceptance board, and spend the rest of this year getting paid to make Potters life a living hell?"

Lily, upon hearing this, calmed down entirely.  
Her pacing halted, and her angry, laboured breathing slowed down.

And then she spoke.  
"How do you feel about teaming up with the Prewetts?"

* * *

James was somewhere under his invisibility cloak, and Sirius could damn well guess where.  
Apparently charms today hadn't gone on long enough for James to get his Lily fix.  
Sirius ran through the corridors, hoping that his friend had gotten peckish and decided on the kitchens instead, when he came across a cat.

The cat stood in the centre of the corridor, and if it were any bigger, it would've blocked his way.

It brought Sirius to a complete halt.

He forgot that he was looking for his friend; in fact, he forgot everything that he was meant to be doing, and the urgency he was meant to be doing it with.

He looked at the cat.

The cat looked at him.

"I think you'd look good in a hat." Said Sirius.

* * *

"I owled them, okay, they'll be here any minute." Said Lily, sitting in the Three Broomsticks, which was unreasonably crowded for a Monday night.

Marlene had put on a thick cloak over her pyjamas and was now drinking butterbeer from a bottle.

"Are you sure you want to bring the twins into this?" Marlene asked with narrowed eyes as if this were a bad idea and she was of questionable sanity for even considering it.

"Not at all." Said Lily, who was nursing a drink a little stronger than butterbeer.

Lily was trying her hardest not to spontaneously combust. While she looked calm outwardly, she was bubbling with rage, and obviously wasn't following the rational, logical, and mature thought processes that she should've.

She wasn't acting like the adult she almost was.  
She was acting like a child with a vendetta, she was making decisions in anger.

She knew she'd probably live to regret all this, but she couldn't find it in her to care.

The twins sashayed into the pub, Gideon sporting pink hair, and Fabian with sparkling tusks coming out of his nostrils.

Every time he tried to breathe out through his nose it led to a bubbling farting sound, which sent both twins into fits of laughter as they walked through the crowd to where Lily and Marlene were sat.

"We have a proposition for you," Marlene sat as the pair of them tried to balance their laughing arses on the bar stools.

Gideon held up one finger to indicate that the two of them should wait, and then Fabian attempted to give a rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic through nothing but his nose farts.

Marlene and Lily did not laugh, they just sat and waited for the boys to finish.

"What? Nothing?" Fabian asked, sending the tusks away with a quick wave of his wand, a little disconcerted that they didn't produce a single laugh.

"Lily's looking for a partner in crime." Said Marlene.

Both girls in that moment would've sworn that they saw real fire light up in their identical eyes.

"Are you serious right now?"

"Because if you're pulling our leg with something like this, I doubt we'll ever forgive you."

"What is it that you need?"

"What do you hope to achieve?"

"Do you have a specific goal in mind?"

"Do you want to coat all the toilet bowls in the school with repelling charms?"

"Do you want to paint the Great Hall with jam?"

"Do you want to fill McGonagall's desk with pickles?"

Marlene forgot the task at hand long enough for her brow to crease in the middle.  
"Why the hell would she want to do that?"

"Fun."

"Why else?"

There was a little bit of silence as Lily gave them a look.

Fabian's grin collapsed.  
Under the joking, to some degree, the boys cared.

"What happened?"

"It's Potter." Said Lily stiffly.

At this, the both of them tensed in their seats, Gideons hair fading from pink back to its regular colour with great speed.

"What's he done?" Gideon asked.

"Did he touch you again?"

"Don't tell us he took it too far this time,"

Lily made a little snarling sound in the back of her throat.  
"Oh, he took it too far this time."

"God, don't tell us he-"

"No." She interrupted them swiftly. "No. He didn't do that."

Fabian seemed to relax a little in his seat, but Gideon leaned forward, as if he were curious what they were going to say next.

"Lily here has recently found out that dearest darling James Potter is the reason she's not in auror training on account of he's bribed just about everyone with his fathers' money to keep her in Hogwarts."

Fabian choked on a laugh.

"Oh you can't be serious."

"I'll assure you I'm perfectly serious. And I'd like help from the both of you to get him back for it."

"Alright, sounds like a laugh." Said Fabian, looking pleased enough with this as a request.

But where Fabian looked happy with the way the discussion had gone, Gideon had developed an unpleasant glint in his eye.

"Course we'll do it. There'll be a price though." He said, prompting Fabian to jab him with an elbow. Fabian glared at his brother as if willing him to shut up.

"What do you want?" Marlene asked, looking amused.

"I want a date with the pretty ginger for my comrade Fabian here."

"Mighty Merlin, murder us all." Muttered Fabian under his breath, hiding his face behind his hands.  
He'd gone beet red.

Marlene briefly choked on her tongue.  
"But he's a pig," she said, sounding shocked.

"That doesn't mean he doesn't have feelings." Said Gideon as though having feelings for Lily was the obvious direction feelings would take.

"You want to take Lily out on a date?" Marlene asked, sounding as if this were the most ridiculous thing she'd possibly ever been told.

Fabian mumbled something in the back of his throat, his face getting even redder.

"If that's a yes to the date proposition, then we'll meet you up at the castle at four."

"I thought you weren't allowed back up into the castle?" Lily asked, finally calm enough to manage a bit of conversation on her own.

"We're not." Gideon winked, and with that, Fabian fled, pulling his brother out of the old pub behind him.

Marlene and Lily looked at one another.

She finished the remainder of her drink in one.  
"I guess I've got a date."

* * *

Sirius got back to the common room cold.  
His blood felt frozen, and he was incredibly glad for the cozy luxury of red and gold living space.

He made a beeline for the fireplace, pleased with what he'd accomplished in the evening.

The fire exuded a huge radius of heat, which seemed to scorch the outside his skin a little, but warmed him inside in a nice sort of way.

"Did you find Prongs?" Asked Remus.

Sirius jumped, not having seen his friend in his rush over to the fire.

"I, uh,"

"You got distracted, didn't you?"

"I ran into Mrs. Norris, do you blame me?"

"Yes."

"What was I going to do if I found him anyway?" Asked Sirius, completely annoyed.

"You were going to explain to him that you told her. Jesus, Padfoot, do you ever think about the consequences of your actions, or do you just dive in thoughtless and unprepared every time? You made a decision that was going to affect more than one persons life,"

Sirius rounded on his friend, suddenly silhouetted by raging flames that cast his face in dramatic, flickering shadow.

"I wasn't the one who made a choice here, I was just the one who exposed it." Sirius mocked.

" _I know. I know what James did was wrong._ But he didn't just bribe people, Sirius. He bribed government officials. Do you think he's just going to get a slap on the wrist? He could get arrested, why did you think I didn't tell Lily myself? This isn't just about some girl and what she thinks of him anymore."

"He attacked her. He's always been a hopeless fucking cockwomble where she was concerned, but he attacked her. If we leave him like this, what do you think he's going to do next time he's left alone in a room with her?" Asked Sirius, the levity of what he'd done to his best friend smashing, heavy over his skull.

"Well I guess we'll never have to find out."

A.N.

It doesn't really look like anyone's reading this, so I guess I'll stop.

Bye Felicia.


	5. Chapter 5

Right, well I've been informed through a series of vaguely unpleasant PMs that people are reading this after all.  
So hooray for that.

As it turns out, I've been busy with classes and exams and all that other inane bullshit that comes with school. Too busy, in fact to write, so I hadn't at all checked my account here, or even the emails attached to it until today.  
But there are some holidays now, and literature is probably a more noble pursuit than another 200 hours of Fallout 4, so welcome to Chapter 5.

* * *

Sirius hadn't slept in two days. For two days he'd been waiting for someone to come down and sweep his best friend away to Azkaban.  
This was because he didn't have a very good grasp on the machinations of the legal system.  
He'd been waiting with his wand at the ready to throw a cheeky _confundus_ at any members of authority who got too close to James.

By the time Monday rolled around it became painfully obvious that Lily Evans had said absolutely nothing at all to anyone with the power to persecute, prosecute or execute his darling Prongs.

This for some reason did absolutely nothing to make him feel better.

This feeling persisted until McGonagall, the one woman that Sirius wouldn't raise his wand against, barged into the Gryffindor common room unannounced and smelling oddly of vinegar.

" _Potter_." She said, not even particularly loudly.

James sat straight up from the samll red couch he'd been napping on

"Yes?"  
"I can ignore some good natured pranks for the sake of your Quidditch abilities, but I will not abide by this."

"You won't abide by what, sorry?" He asked, not prepared to have been thrust into this conversation straight from sleep.

This question seemed to make her incredibly cross.

"A venus fly trap as big as a door eating Slytherin owls, Mr. Potter. And something that I desperately hope is a chocolate concoction streaming down the main staircase." She took a moment, and then a breath as if to pray for calm. "And then there are the pickles, Potter."

"Pickles?"

"Yes." Her nostrils flared. "My desk drawer is filled with them."

She sounded deathly serious, but James Potter couldn't help the snort that came through his nose.

"Merlin and Morgana, why would you think I did it?" Said James who hadn't done it.

"Because you signed your name on my desk you idiot boy. My office, now. You too, Black."

"Why? What've I done?" Asked Sirius.  
"I'll come up with something on the way."

"McGonagall- have I ever signed my name before? Why would I leave evidence-"

"Mr Potter, the professors here stopped underestimating your arrogance shortly after your third year when you charmed all of the crockery in the great hall to tell Ms. Evans 'how fit' you thought she was."

"That was a good one,"

"My office. Now."

* * *

Lily wasn't sure she'd ever been this angry in her life.

She'd cooled a bit, so it wasn't as obvious as it had been before, not so aggressive. But it was present, and it was quiet, and it was at least seven times more calculatedly dangerous than it had been before back when she'd been all yelly and impulsive.

Fabian and Gideon had made her a list of what could realistically be achieved prank wise without having anyone expelled.

She'd realised somewhere through last night that James Potter, while having poor emotional boundaries and what was quickly seeming to be a psychotic attachment to her, did not deserve to have his life ruined over a childish impulse to keep his childhood crush nearby.

She decided that he did, however, deserve to be as miserable as she could realistically manage to make him.

Marlene, notorious blanket hog, rolled over, almost pushing Lily off the bed.

It was about time she got up anyway, so instead of fighting for her half of the bed, she went and had a shower.

She was going to have to teach him today.  
It was going to be a right task to sit opposite that smarmy little git and not _Avada Kedavra_ anyone.

She paid special attention to her makeup. She never usually did much more than a rush job, a bit of powder over her cheeks if she looked pale, mascara on her eyelashes if her skin was so spotty that she needed to draw attention away.

But not today.

While drunk last night, Lily had confessed to Marlene that she'd felt powerless before, when she hadn't had her wand, when he stood too close- when he looked her directly in the eyes.

He had an intensity about him that she would've found impossible to resist.

Would've found impossible to resist if he weren't her student or a deluded sociopath; that was.

Marlene then had given her some very sound advice, and that advice was _To take the power back._

He was the one with all of the feelings, after all. It shouldn't be too difficult.

Which was why she was winging her eyeliner to sharp points. Even if it were only psychological- even if it were inside of her own head, it made her feel more powerful.  
It gave her the advantage of confidence, if she could control her appearance, she could control anything.

When she was done with her makeup, she looked several times more threatening than she had when she'd started, then her eyes came to rest on her bed hair.

There was a pot of sleekeazys on the vanity.

She looked at it.

It seemed to look back.

She pushed it into the bathroom bin.

She didn't need _any_ help from _any_ Potter.

Her hair was too red to be worth the risk, anyway.

She pulled on her robes and entered her living area, where Marlene was making a pot of tea.

"Morning Lil- Wow, okay."

"What?"  
"You look-"

"I look what?"  
"You look terrifying. Those eyes are going to give Potter a heart-attack."  
"Well one can only hope. You coming down for breakfast? Benjy'll be here soon."

"Sure. Hey, can I audit your class?"

"Want to make sure I don't kill anyone?"  
"Nah, I want to watch Sirius Black. I swear to god his arse is a masterpiece."

Lily choked on her tea.

For once, when she got to the classroom it was already filled with her N.E.W.T.s students. She checked her watch and saw that she was here at the same time as usual, everyone else was just early.

A group of girls in the back of the room were playing a David Cassidy record on a player they seemed to have fashioned out of a textbook, a wand, and some very nice charmwork.

She wandered if any of the girls who'd made the player were muggle-born. She couldn't imagine any purebloods watching the Partridge family; but then again, a wave of delayed Beatlemania had swept through the school in her first year when Dumbledore had discovered he had a bit of a crush on George Harrison.

And then there had been 1974, the disastrous year of ABBA winning Eurovision and just about every single pubescent girl singing Waterloo until Lily wanted to fling herself out the window.

Marlene conjured a chair and sat in the back corner of the room, behind Lily's desk.

Looking a little dishevelled, Peter entered the room alone to sit in his usual seat. About three minutes later, the other three entered. Potter was laughing, but Sirius and Remus looked a little more serious.

Sirius and James sat down at their regular desk, but Remus walked right up to Lily.

His face was thin and pale, scar standing out lividly against it all.

"Good morning." He said, not meeting her eyes.  
"Good morning." She answered.

"You look, um," he seemed to search for a word, met her eyes, and then looked back down to the surface of her wooden desk. "Angry."

"That's because I am. I'm assuming you know why?" She asked. In a flat sort of voice that surprised even her.

"I do. You haven't said anything to anyone, have you?" He asked, finally meeting her eyes with a pleading look.

"No one with the power to do anything about it. I can't say I'm surprised about the other two- but you, I thought you would've stopped him from doing something like this to me. I thought we were friends, Remus." She said, knowing it was cruel, but not much caring.

"We are," he sounded a little desperate.

"Then why did I find out about this, this, violation, through Sirius? Of all people?"

"Because he's impulsive, he didn't think the consequences through. I would've told you, I swear, but I didn't know how you'd react."

She looked at him levelly until he worked up the courage to meet her eye.  
"Fair enough. Take your seat, Mr. Lupin."  
"I'm sorry, Lily."

"You've done absolutely nothing wrong, Mr. Lupin. Please take your seat."

She knew that she was taking her anger out on the wrong person, but she couldn't help it.

When Remus sat back down, she saw the man of the hour, James Potter, staring at her. He was probably clueless. She doubted that he even knew that she knew his dirty little secret.

She focused her laser lined eyes at him. He did not flinch away. In fact, he seemed to rather enjoy it.  
She ground her teeth and tried to will her anger away by starting the lesson.

But then her eyes rolled back over smug little James Potter.  
James Potter who'd stripped her and sucked her and made her forget her own name inside of her own office.

Her anger was incredible

"Today, I think I'll be teaching you about Dark Charms, otherwise known as curses, jinxes or hexes. Now let's find a nice delinquent who probably already knows a few Dark Charms of their own. As you're all N.E.W.T. students, you know _Avis_ don't you?" She said, flicking her wand as she said the word.  
A cluster of angry birds were conjured from the tip of her wand, shooting out with the sound like a shotgun being fired.

Right into the face of one Mr. Potter.

Most of them attacked, but one instead took a shit on his head.

"Get rid of them with a simple hex, Potter, and I'll give you a gold star." She said, swiftly casting a babbling charm upon his person, which rendered all of his wand-waving useless.

"What's wrong? Not feeling too well? Well I've got a curse for that, too. _Mucus ad Nauseam._ See how fun curses can be, class?"

James dropped his wand to cover his face while he coughed and then dripped. She saw Sirius' knuckles whitening around his own wand on top of their desk.

" _Engorgio Skullus."_ She said offhandedly, pointing her wand in his direction before he could raise his own against her. Or worse, perform the counter-curses.

Sirius' Blacks head started to swell until he was almost the anthropomorphism of his ego.

"Alright, everybody, remember that if you see our volunteer Mr. Potter here later in the day, shoot him with your best hex for extra credit, he doesn't mind."

She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

It was Marlene telling her that she needed to stop before she crossed the boundary of what was acceptable etiquette for an educator.

She reversed her spells, and then set the students up in pairs to practice throwing basic hexes on inanimate objects.

Eventually, the class drew to an end. Everyone save the four Marauders and Marlene filed out.  
"Get out." She instructed, giving them a good glare.

Remus swallowed, and Peter turned around to start toward the door.  
When the rest of them didn't shift, she rethought her command.

"Actually, Black, I'd like to have a word with you in private. The rest of you may leave." She said, making her way to her feet and herding the rest of them toward the door.

"What do you want to talk to Padfoot about?" Asked Potter.

"Talk? Who said anything about talking? I'm going to ask him to shag me, right here on this desk." She said, closing the door right in his face.

She turned back to the classroom and looked at the beautiful, polished boy with neat black hair and sparkling grey eyes.

He looked worried.

"You read my note."  
"I did." She answered, pulling a chair from under a desk and sitting in it.

"You didn't tell anyone?" He said lifting his head to examine Marlene.

"I told some people. Why did you tell me?" She asked him.

He looked at her as if he were trying to see what his best friend saw in her.

Then he seemed to find it.

"I shouldn't have."  
"No," She corrected him. "You should have. It was what was right, but it wasn't exactly in your best interest, you have to admit. You're aware that by default, this makes you my new favourite of your little group." She admitted grudgingly.

He sat down.

"Oh, _good._ " He said, running a hand through his hair. "So are you going to keep on passively-aggressively taking this out on James, or are you going to get him taken off to Mungo's mental ward?"

Lily didn't think that there had been much passiveness in her aggression.  
"Do you think he needs Mungo's mental ward?" She asked.

He seemed to think it over.

"Barring his obsession with you, he's pretty sane. Well, sane as the rest of us, at least." He said, leaning back in his chair.

"I guess that's something." She said, watching as Marlene walked forward to join their conversation.

"Marlene McKinnon." Sirius greeted her cheerfully on a sigh, as if she were a breath of fresh air. "As stunning as ever."

"Sirius Black, you've developed into quite a piece of arse."

" _Thank you._ " He said, as if someone finally understood.

And with that, the two of them used each other as an excuse to leave.

Lily put her head in her hands and sulked for a long moment against the surface of her desk.  
If she'd been listening, she would've heard the door ever so quietly open and then close.

She would've heard quiet footsteps padding across the floor.

"I was listening through the door."

She jumped.

James' Potters voice had come from the opposite side of the room.

He was looking at his hands.

His jaw was clenched, and she was struck again by his devastating good looks. She pushed the feeling away, it wasn't of any use to her.

Instead of answering, she just watched him.

"I'm sorry." He said, and it sounded so heartfelt that she believed him. "I just- I,"  
He took a long moment to gather his thoughts.

Apparently he wanted to explain. He wanted her to listen to his explanation.

"You graduated, and I thought it was going to be horrible, but a few years wasn't such a long time. I thought I'd wait it out and it'd all be good. But then the holidays came and I realised that I wasn't going to be able to see you for months. I started having problems getting out of bed. It'd been like that the year before as well, but the fact that you'd be there when I got back kept me going. And then it hit me that it wasn't just a few months, when I came back to Hogwarts, you wouldn't be here. And then by the time I got into auror training you'd be finished. And what then? What if you were in a relationship? What if a raid went wrong and you _died_? The thought of going one more day without you in it was painful, let alone my entire life-"

He was speaking so quietly that she barely believed the words were coming from him.

He took his glasses off to scrub a hand over his face.

"I knew it was a dreadful thing to do as I was doing it, but I rationalised it to myself, you know? Between the panic attacks and imagining you dead, it wasn't hard. Then I got to school and the other lads found out. I don't think I'll ever forget how horrified Moony looked, that was when I really knew I'd fucked up."

She looked at him, and he looked at the floor.

He was just a boy, and in one moment of clarity she realised that he was still a teenager. She remembered exactly how frustrating it had been to be seventeen.  
Oddly enough, she wanted to comfort him.  
Her anger had melted away.  
It was true that he should've known better, but it was also true that his actions weren't wholly his fault.

Then she caught herself, realised that what she was thinking was along the same sentiment as ' _boys will be boys,_ '

And while boys would be boys, boys would also be held accountable for their actions just like everyone else.

Her anger wouldn't be curbed so easily.

"It's an explanation, but it isn't an excuse for what you did."

After his quiet speech, her voice cut too sharply though the air.

He visibly flinched, but masked it by setting his glasses back on his nose.

She stood up and walked over to him he looked down at her through glass and incredibly thick eyelashes.

"You're going to leave now, aren't you." He said softly.

"Did you really think I'd stay once I found out?"

"I don't know, maybe?" He ran a hand self-consciously over his stubble. It made a scratching sound, and she swallowed when she realised she wanted to run her mouth over it.

She was meant to hate him, but apparently that was a fact that her body was very quickly forgetting.

"Your brain must be a Freudian wet dream. Imagine how much money it'd cost to get someone to sort that out." She said absently, her brain spitting out words without giving her the chance to audit them.

He laughed, his eyes crinkling warmly at the edges.

"Probably about the same amount it cost to keep you here."

And then his laughter faded and turned sad.  
He covered his eyes with his fingers, running them over his lids under the glasses.

"You know I still remember the first time I ever saw you."  
"You would've been eleven. That's ridiculous,"

"Yeah, we were on the main staircase, and McGonagall was giving us her usual speech for the first years. And then your laugh came through from the great hall. It was such a loud, stupid sound. You have a ridiculous laugh, have I ever told you that? But I knew, even as an eleven year old, that if I could hear that laugh again, I'd have everything I needed. If I could make you laugh, I'd be invincible."

She looked at him for a long moment, he still didn't look up.

"And then we went into the great hall, and there you were. Someone had told a joke, it was probably Marlene, and you were laughing so hard your face had gone as red as your hair. I remember seeing a boy who was probably Benjy had snorted pumpkin juice all down the front of his robes, and it just made you laugh harder."

Now he did look up.

There was nothing apologetic in his expression. It was hard and forceful and strong.  
He didn't regret what he'd done.

She knew that look.

He felt bad about it, he probably truly did, but given the chance to go back, he'd probably have done it all again.

"Pull yourself together, Potter."  
Now he met her eyes.

"You really shouldn't look at me like that." He said, his voice deep and smooth. A warning.

He straightened himself out from where he'd been leaning against the desk, and towered over her.

Her head barely reached his shoulders.

She hadn't even noticed how close she'd gotten until she realised she could feel his body heat.

His pupils blew out to dominate hazel iris. By the look of it, he'd only just realised how close they were standing as well.  
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he seemed to fight a shiver.

She needed to look away, and used the guise of checking the time to do so.

"Well, look at the time. I've got to go. Prior engagement and all that."

"It's lunch time."

"And Marlene wants to spend all afternoon helping me get ready for my date. Don't you have Quidditch practice to get ready for?"

He cleared his throat.

"A date? With who?"  
"Slughorn."

He blinked at her.

"If you really must know, Fabian Prewett."

His face creased.

"Fabian Prewett's a git."

"There are worse things to be."

"Like what?" He asked politely, seeming to either have a very firm grip of his temper, or had somehow gotten over himself enough to not be bothered by the fact that Lily was dating someone who wasn't him.

"How about a manipulative stalker?"

He scratched the back of his head.

"I deserve that one."

"Yeah, you do."

"Well, yeah. I do actually have Quidditch to get ready for, so I'll be leaving. See you later, I suppose."

And with that, James Potter left, perfectly calm.  
He walked through the halls and then reached the Quidditch pitch, where first years were practicing on school brooms.

"Oi, Potter!" Someone called from a distance, He ignored them in favour of marching across the field.

A date with Fabian Prewett, serial prankster and arsehole extraordinaire. She was so far out of his league that the idea was laughable.

He came across a tiny blonde thing, holding a broom in shaking hands.

He ripped it from her grasp, and then broke it clean in half over his knee.  
He tossed the two broken pieces to the ground on either side of him.

A date with Fabian Prewett.

He was going to have to do something about that.


	6. Chapter 6

I apologise for not updating in so long, and would like to actually thank those of you who have reviewed, favourited and followed.  
While all of you have fed my ego, there is one user who has fed it particularly.  
This was the user who deigned my writing important enough to send me some very lengthy and critical hate messages. You know who you are you little shit.  
And I know you're still reading, so kiss my lily white arse you sullen twat.

* * *

"Would it be wrong if I fucked Black?" Marlene asked from underneath of the pile of clothes she'd created on Lily's floor.

"He's seventeen."

"It's only two years."

"Wouldn't you find it weird?"

"A bit, maybe, but his arse makes up for it."

"Do what you like," Lily said with a little bit of a sneer. She was still annoyed. She needed to punch something.

"Don't be a lemon, it isn't the same as with you and James."

Lily sighed.

"I know, I'm sorry. I just wish-"

She cut herself off before she admitted anything incriminating out loud.

"You wish what?" Asked Marlene, who was holding out a green dress to survey how she thought Lily might look in it. She tossed it to the side.

"Nothing."

"No, what?"

Lily sighed.

"I wish the goddamned prick weren't so sodding nice to look at." She threw herself down onto her bed. "He assaulted me, I know that it was assault. But Christ, the way it felt. I can't believe I actually enjoyed it- I'm almost as angry with myself as I am at him."

Marlene sighed.

"You know, I was a little jealous of the way he was so slavishly, stupidly devoted to you. I'm not an advocate for him or anything, but he loves you. It's a little demented, but being loved like that does something to a person."

"I just- I want to be angry with him. When he's not in front of me, I want to strangle the life out of him. But when he is- when he looks at me with those huge brown eyes I almost want to just grab him and kiss him myself."

Marlene was silent.

She went back to digging through clothes.

"Do you think you need to leave Hogwarts?"

"I don't know. It's a good job at the end of the day-"

"We could find you another one in the auror office. Probably just secretarial work until you can start training?"

Lily sighed and stood back up, picking a dress at random from the top of the pile.

"I'll think about it."

And with that, she went to meet Fabian for their date.

He took her to the Hog's Head, which smelled very strongly of goat.

"The Hog's Head," she said after he came to the table with drinks.

His leg was bouncing under the table.

"Yeah, well I'm hoping you'll get an adrenaline rush and displace it for the thrill of my company."

She grinned at him.

"That probably won't work so well now you've told me."

"Well, I'm nothing if not honest."

"That's a lie."

"I know."

The first half of the date went well considering that she thought of nothing but another man. The second half of the date, however, she thought of nothing but Fabian.

This was on account of he started to leak large amounts of livid yellow pus and his arms turned into large purple tentacles.

This did not suit him in the slightest.

"Are you right there mate?" Asked Lily, who didn't want to get any closer to him on account of the pus.

He tried to answer, but instead spewed more of the stuff all over the dirty table in front of him. Some of it slopped into his drink. It bobbed and then floated.

It was nasty, and the both of them knew that Lily was no longer going to be able to view him as a sexual prospect. Lily looked to the bartender, who was not paying either of them any attention at all. She wondered if someone had put something in his mead.

She looked around the pub for someone that might have done it, but found only shadowed figures who probably wouldn't have done anything that would draw attention to themselves.

She muttered a few quiet counter curses, hoping that one of them would work. One of them got rid of the pus, but didn't really do anything about the tentacles.

With this, the date ended early. Fabian, despite his tentacles, walked Lily to the gate of the school.

"That went really dreadfully, didn't it?"

Lily laughed.

"Yeah, it did."

"I'm going to hazard a guess that there's absolutely no chance of a second date."

"None at all." She said with a shrug.

"Shame, that. I hear there's a lot of fun that a girl can have with tentacles." He said, wriggling the hideous things at her. He seemed to be rather enjoying them, and wasn't at all disheartened by her rejection.

Apparently the tentacles made up for it.

"You're probably right, but it's not really my cup of tea. You should have a talk with Marlene about it though-"

Fabian scoffed.

"As much fun as it would be to make little boy Benjy cry, I don't think I could keep up with her."

"Even with tentacle hands?" She teased.

He took a step forward so that he stood unnecessarily close to Lily. His face was hovering over hers, and his expression seemed to be filled with sincere intensity.

He lifted what would've been a hand, and brought the slimy appendage up to caress her cheek.

The tiny suction cups made a nasty little wet sound as they popped off her skin.

There was a film of residue left on her skin.

He leaned down close to her ear and took one deep inhale of the scent of her hair. And then with deep levity, as if he was asking the most important question ever directed at her, he spoke.

"Do you need to throw up?"

Fabians mouth was pressed into a thin, trembling line of repressed laughter.

She was fighting a very strong urge to scrub at the side of her face with the sleeve of her robe.

"I really, really do."

And with that she walked through the gate and away from him before she could retch.

She walked the rest of the way back up to the castle alone.

She didn't quite feel alone, though. She kept a very tight grip on her wand.

Something bumped into her.

She turned, but saw nothing.

She walked quicker toward the castle.

Something bumped into her again, and she walked even faster.

By the time she reached the castle, her pulse seemed to be the loudest thing in the entrance hall.

She was breathing heavily, and almost jumped when she heard footsteps approaching.

She was almost relieved when she saw that it was just Potter.

And then she saw the look in his eyes.  
At this moment in time, James Potter didn't look to be a very happy gentleman. He was walking toward her with a stony sort of determination, and there was a black, distinctly unfriendly look in his eyes.

"What are you doing out at this hour?" She asked, hoping that her authority would save her from this apparent spite.

He pulled something from the depthless pocket of his robe, a beautiful, intricately patterned antique cloak.

He was altogether too close now, apparently determined to suffocate her with space invasion. He also quite possibly might have been doing his best to give her a heart attack.

Lifting the cloak up, he ran the soft fabric over her cheek once and then twice, and then again, directly over where Fabians nasty tentacle had touched.

"Is that an invisibility cloak? Oh my god, you have an invisibility cloak, _shit_ , you have an invisibility cloak-"

"Shut up."

He had one huge hand in the hair at the back of her head.

He yanked on it, tilting her face back so that he could kiss it.

James Potter tasted of butter beer and chocolate.

His lips were soft.

Her head was spinning, and his arms were around her middle, pulling the entire length of her into him.

There was passion and force behind the kiss, it was not relaxed, it was not friendly and it was not nice.

She tried to fight him off, but not for nearly half as long as she should have.

Instead she found herself wondering whether she could let it go on for just another few seconds. She certainly wouldn't have to stop him for a little while.

In fact, she didn't have to stop him at all. Why would she need to stop him when she could sigh and open her mouth under his? When she could wind her fingers into his soft black hair?

When she could meet his insistent tongue with her own, and hear him make that little sound of desperation again.

Suddenly his mouth was gone from hers, and she made a little whimper at the loss before she realised that he was just migrating down to her neck.

He seemed to be searching for something under her skin, and after a moment, he found it.

A single spot near the back of her ear that made gooseflesh rise from underneath her skin.

He attacked it with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue.

She went weak against him.

He said something, but his voice came out low, and deep and guttural, and her blood was pumping too hard in her head for her to make it out.

"Were you not listening when I told you that you were mine?" He asked the shell of her ear, running his nose along the outside edge before taking the lobe between his teeth.

He reached through the opening of her robe and massaged one of her breasts with an unfulfilling tenderness.

She needed him harder- but his hand remained gentle.

He didn't even attempt to shift the fabric aside to touch her bare skin, which was what she really in this moment wanted. What she needed.

Instead his hand trailed down over her abdomen, and toward where her legs met.

"A dress for another man. How are you going to make it up to me?" He asked.

She looked up at him blankly, her skin burning too hotly for her to remember that she owed him nothing.

"I-"

He pushed a hand between her thighs and traced a delicate line over her lips, barely even touching her damp underwear.

She gripped his shoulder.

He stroked her again, this time with a little more pressure.

She rocked her hips against him.

"That's it, baby." He said, his voice rough.

He started to rub his way up to her nub, and she was panting.

He tore her panties away and touched her glistening, swollen lips directly. She was soft and hot and wet, all for him.

He made a loud groan of approval.

James Potter wasn't ay longer capable of speech. He couldn't have told Lily how long- how often he'd fantasized about doing this to her. Doing this with her.

He pushed a long, large finger inside of her, and she clenched it tight. She was so slick that he could push in another finger with ease.

He hooked them inside of her and she moaned, falling into him, opening her legs wider, making room for him.

He rubbed at her sweet little clit with his thumb as he pumped his fingers into her.

It was over too soon, she came into the palm of his hand.

Slowly, gently, he removed his fingers and held her as she jerked, her hips trying to twitch against him.

She sighed and rested her head on his collarbone, breathing heavily.

She hummed quietly, completely contented.

And then she went stiff in his arms.

Lily Evans realised what had just happened, who it had just happened with, and that it had all happened in the middle of the entrance hall.

She fought her way out of his embrace just in time to see James Potter lifting his fingers to his mouth and tasting, making sure that he didn't waste an of her cream.

Her mouth fell open into a delicate 'o' 

And then she ran. 

And she continued to run until she reached her room, where she opened the door as quickly as possible before swiftly slamming it behind her.

She had forgotten that Marlene was staying with her, so when a blonde head peeped up from the arm rest of the lounge, she very nearly screamed.

"Oh, Marly." She said, half collapsing against the closed door.

Marlene's eyebrows creased in the middle. And then a devilish smile twisted her mouth.

"Is that the flush of an orgasm on those cheeks? I didn't know you even liked Fabian that way-"

"Contact whoever you know that can get me that secretarial job, I need to get out of Hogwarts. Right now."


	7. Chapter 7

I apologise, again, for not updating in so long.  
There is an explanation for this: I got a bit tired with the premise and the dynamic of the piece.  
That and I have red hair and green eyes. Which would be fine if I hadn't developed a dark haired English boyfriend named James who is honestly a bit of a wanker.  
(Btw if you're reading this Jimmy jim jim, love you, but you're a prick and you know it.)

It just got way too fucking weird for me to write, the characters started to feel like self-inserts so I stopped.

Anyway, for those of you who are still with me, thanks.

By the way, if anyone out there reading this is still young and impressionable I am so so so so sorry. It's rated M for a reason, and that is that what I'm writing is pornographic, and a bit dark. This is not a reflection of real life romantic interaction. At all. If this happened in reality, it would be terrifying.  
We all got our kinks, kids, but these ones should best stay fictional.

Chapter Seven.

Six years later.

Her shoulders ached.  
It was a good ache.  
It was the ache that came with hauling two death eaters by the collar of their robes through the anti-magic fields.

This was the way it was meant to be, was all that Lily Evans could think as she hauled two bleeding, broken death eaters by their torn black robes, into the pot.

She was tousled, her hair was windswept and bright red, and there was a livid patch of bruising on the left of her jaw. Blood dripping from a slicing charm that had grazed her arm.  
She was having the time of her fucking life.

The pot was what they called the apparition chamber they transported particularly nasty criminals in.

Lily was grinning, high on adrenaline.  
Hunting Death Eaters with her two best friends.  
This was what she'd worked toward and now she had it.  
And she loved it.

Benjy tossed his own, significantly more limp Death Eater into the pot, soot streaking his face and wand tucked into his pocket.

Marlene, somehow spotless and having already tossed her Death Eater in, smiled at her friends.  
"Ready to get back to the office? The new boss should be in by now,"

"Yeah, sure." Said Lily.  
Her good mood was going to fade very quickly.  
She had liked her old boss.  
He'd been the largest contributing factor to her success.  
And now he was gone.

The three of them apparated back to the Ministry, taking the long way in to get past the anti-apparition fields.

The high, stained glass ceiling shone warm colour down as they walked through the waist high cubicles.

They walked in time, their feet hitting the floor with a perfect, rhythmic unison.  
It was habit, now. Even if it was hugely pretentious, Lily couldn't stop it.

Sirius Black sat in his girlfriend's cubicle, picking at a grease spotted newspaper packet of fish and chips. Marlene split off to throw herself into his lap.

"The finale to my perfect afternoon." Benjy said under his breath, looking sad, dirty and exhausted.

Lily smirked as she sat down in her own cubicle, ready to get a start on her paperwork for the days dark wizards.  
It was dry, but being able to make fun of Benjy made up for it.

He was picking at a small glob of brown by the top button of the shirt under his robes.  
"The two of you really like to make my life a living hell, don't you."  
He was referencing an event from earlier that morning.

"How was I to know it was a parcel of shit?" She asked, trying to hide the laugh in her voice as she watched Marlene and Sirius feed each other fries. They weren't very well hidden behind the low cubicle wall.

Benjy looked as if he were about to be ill.

"You didn't have to throw it at my face."

"But then how else would I work on my aim?" She asked, scrunching up the nearest document and tossing it at his head.  
It bounced into the trash.

This was when Ashley Myers, a pretty blonde squib and one of the secretaries for this department, jumped to a stop in front of Lily's desk.  
The girl seemed to skip instead of walk.

"Did you see him?" Ashley asked in an excited, if hushed, whisper.

"See who?"

"Our new boss." Lily's good mood faded. "He's so handsome, you have to go have a look for yourself. I saw him first, so I've got dibs."

"No thanks." She said.  
Her new boss could be the best looking thing on the planet and it wouldn't make up for the fact that he had replaced Oxley.

She caught Sirius watching her for the briefest moment, dividing the attention that customarily belonged to Marlene. He turned his head quickly enough to snap his neck when she caught him.

She wondered what that might be about.

"Honestly, Lily. Go have a look." Said Ashley Myers.  
It was then that Lily caught sight of the orange file tucked under the secretary's arm.

Lily loved the orange files.

"Again? No, I can't go out again, I'm exhausted." Said Benjy.

Lily's knee had already started jittering.

This meant she could delegate the bulk of her paperwork and go back out in the field.

"Oh don't complain, Benjy. Do it for the safety of our great nation." Lily spouted with only a little sarcasm, standing up, and shifting out of her cubicle toward the file.

"Actually," said Ashley, looking through long eyelashes as if she were about to give some bad news.

"It's just for Marlene and Benjy this time." She handed Benjy the file.  
Lily's knees locked and Ashley briefly wondered if she might lose the hand attached to it.

"Excuse me?" Lily asked.

"I've been instructed not to let you out. You're not necessary for this one."

Lily's teeth ground together.

"What do you mean, _I'm not necessary_ for this one?"

Sirius smiled his most charming smile and edged his way out of Marlene's cubicle.

He patted Lily's shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be friendly.

"C'mon, Evans. The auror office can't pull out the big guns for every little mission."

Instead of tearing his throat out like she wanted to, she turned and sat back down in front of the paperwork and pretended like she got over it.

And she probably would've gotten over it as well, if it hadn't have been the first of five missions she wasn't allowed to go on.

Every time McKinnon and Fenwick returned, they looked more beaten and bloody than the last.

And she, apparently, had been benched.

She was not happy about it.  
In fact, she was livid about it.  
She'd been avoiding her new boss since his induction on account of he still failed to be Oxley, but at the sixth new mission handed to a ragged Marlene, Lily lost it.

She marched her way through the twisted halls of the auror offices, and she almost made it to Oxley's old door when she was intercepted by none other than Ashley Myers, who was so obviously smitten with her new boss that Lily wanted to kick her.

But the orange file under her arm was enough to keep her from committing acts of violence to her superiors

She was going to be one of a team of ten hunting down defected Death Eaters.

Or that was what she thought.

When the team of ten got there, there were two Death Eaters.  
If they could even have been called that.

They were snivelling idiots, one of whom dropped his wand in an attempt to use _expelliarmus_ on her.

This was when she lost her temper entirely.  
When she returned from the mission that she could have done alone and half asleep, she marched, fuming to the point of her hair sticking on end, to her new bosses office

To Oxleys office.

She'd had to listen to every woman in the office under thirty go on about how they loved him now, and after this past mission she wouldn't be able to hear another word of it without punching a wall in.

She didn't care if it was the bloody minister of magic sat in that office, she was going to give him a good yell.

The frosted glass in the window of the wooden door almost shattered under her forceful push, and her voice came out of her throat in a yell before she even knew what she was saying.

"I'm one of the best aurors in this fucking unit, and you use me for that? Are you trying to turn this department into a joke?"

Ashley was stood to the side of Oxley's desk, and in his seat was her new boss.

He was significantly larger than Oxley.  
Taller.  
Broader.  
With messier hair.

If she had not have been trained, her legs might have given out.

She stared.

"I don't see why keeping our most valuable aurors in reserve until we actually need them is something I should be admonished for?" Said James Potter from behind his new desk, calm.

He didn't seem at all to be shaken by her sudden appearance.  
She hated him for it.

He was older.

He was a fully grown, finished adult now.

His jaw was harder, his shoulders broader, and he was probably even a bit taller when he was standing.

Lily's throat went dry.

His hair was still ink black, and though there was evidence that he had tried to tame it, it still went off in wild directions.

She hated herself for the sudden impulse to put her hands in it. To sift it through her fingers. A small divot appeared in the side of his jaw.

"Sit, Ms Evans." He instructed.

And suddenly her traitorous brain conjured pictures of her sitting on his face.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" She asked, her voice coming out throatier than she'd wanted.

He took his glasses off, and suddenly she was under the full force of his golden gaze.  
"My job."

He was watching her throat.

Feeling off balance, she sat in the seat he'd indicated.

"I've waited a very long time for this." He said quietly.

"For what?" She asked.

He only then seemed to realise that he'd spoken aloud.

"For the roles to be reversed, Evans." He told her with his old cocky smile that now seemed to have a hint of slyness to it.  
She needed to put as much distance as she could manage between them.

"What are you going to do, Potter? Give me a time out?" She was aiming for snark but it fell flat out of her mouth.  
He just smiled at her. There was malice in it.

"I think I should like it if you called me 'Sir'."  
And now she was angry.

"Ill call you 'sir' if you give me back my missions."

Ashley was watching the two of them with vague alarm.

"If you think I'm going to send you out to battle dark wizards, you're out of your mind."

"It's my job."

"I couldn't care less, Evans."

"Well then, I'd like to request a transfer, sir." She mocked.

He looked back down to his paperwork, as if she were insignificant and inconsequential.

"Request denied."

"Then I'll have to take this to your superior."

"What, to Barnes?" He snorted. "He still thinks half-bloods shouldn't be taught defensive spells. Good luck."

She stayed silent for long enough that he had to look up and meet her glare.

"So I'm meant to let my career die because you decided you have some personal vendetta?"

"It isn't like that,"

"Really? Because it seems exactly like that. Ashley, can you go and get me Oxley's details?"

James jumped when Lily brought the third party into the conversation.  
He seemed to have forgotten she was in the room.

"I shouldn't think you would want to bring Mr. Cavendish into this, Lily." Said Ashley softly.

"I'll bring Oxley into anything I like, thanks."

"Don't get her the details. You may leave." He instructed Ashley.

"Don't leave," said Lily. "I'm not finished talking with him."

James stood. He stretched taller than she had expected, and he was broad and filled out.  
He stretched over her, tall and intimidating, casting a shadow over where she was sat.

She swallowed, but it didn't do anything the wet her throat or calm her pulse.

"I think we could manage to talk without her here,"

When he was stood she could see the faint outline of chest under his shirt. It drew attention to the smooth muscle of his neck, the stubble roughening his jaw.  
His shirt was expensive, well cut. It also seemed to only exist to imprison what was definitely an incredible torso.

She took a breath and could smell him in the air.  
It shocked her how familiar it was.  
How it made her chest ache just a little.

She wanted to scream at herself. Anger and fear should be the only things she should be feeling.  
Not whatever this was.

His molten hazel eyes watched her, thick black eyelashes blinked and tangled at the edges. She found it completely and utterly disarming.

And then she remembered who she was dealing with. Lily stood up to back away, but did it too quickly.

Her chair toppled over.

The ache in her chest had spread to the rest of her body. The bottom of her abdomen was hot, her breasts were aching, and she needed to get away from him before she did something stupid.

She was going to do something stupid.

"If you think I'm going to let myself be left alone with you again-"

She saw his hand whiten, bloodless, against the edge of his table.

Large hands.

Even larger than they'd been before.

She almost whimpered.

His fingers were long and elegant.

She remembered when they'd been inside of her and took another step toward the door.

His jaw was clenched into a hard shape.

"Evans-"

"Fine. I'll leave." Said Lily, knowing that she wasn't just leaving his office, but going home.

Where she would stand under the coldest shower that she could.

Marlene and Benjy saw Lily leave.  
Sirius Black took this opportunity to saunter into his best friends office.

Ashley remained where she had stood when Lily entered, looking confused and hurt.

"Get out." James ordered.

She left.  
Black shut the door behind her.

"You right mate?" Asked Sirius.

James' chest was heaving behind his desk. He was more reserved now than he had been in school. Back then he would've done anything to make a spectacle of himself to draw attention.  
Now he was going to wait for her to come to him.  
If she ever did.  
He supposed if she couldn't forgive him he'd just go die or something.

"She," he cut himself off, and seemed to think about his words.

"I forgot what it was like when she looked at me." He said after a moment.

James pressed his eyes closed.

"Still that bad?"

James started to make what may have been a laugh.

"It's worse."

"Jesus Christ."


End file.
